Free Lone Star 04 by Wesley Ellis

wished.”
    â€œIt did not seem like a sound idea at the moment.”
    â€œBecause you have no understanding,” scoffed Sonia. “Why do you think Feodor is risking his life now to try to find it? My father is the Keeper of the Silver Cane. The cane is our life, our only protection. It has been passed from elder to elder for hundreds of years, from one generation to the next. It is all we have to face the powers of the devil’s creatures on Earth!” Sonia moaned and tore at her face. “God, why am I telling you this?” You don’t believe a word of it.“
    â€œWe believe you and your people are very troubled by this thing,” Ki said gently.
    â€œTroubled! Is that what you think is happening here? Trouble?” The girl stood, straightened her skirts, and walked unsteadily to the big stove. “I cannot understand what happened,” she said, almost to herself. “Things are not the same in America.” She turned and looked at Jessie. “That is why my father let you stay for supper. He thought it was safe for you to ride out of here after dark. In our country, a man cannot become a wolf unless the moon is full. That would not happen for another three days. Yet the creature has killed. Why? Why has this—” Sonia’s face twisted in fury and grief, and she fled from the room and closed the door behind her.
    Jessie rolled her eyes at Ki, filled her mug again, then changed her mind and set it aside. “Lord, Ki, I don’t think you could convince these folks if you skinned that wolf and nailed its hide to the wall.”
    â€œA belief is harder to kill than a whole pack of wolves. It will take more than that.” He moved toward the door and turned to face her. “I’m going to take a look around. I’ll be right back.”
    Jessie nearly came out of her chair. “Ki, you are not thinking about going after Feodor?”
    â€œNo. That occurred to me, but only briefly.” Ki grinned and shook his head. “The Japanese have a saying: ‘Do not rescue a Transylvanian from the wheatfields. He will likely never forgive you.’ ”
    Jessie smiled thinly at him.
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    The women of the village might be praying their elder would die, but Ki found the men engaged in other pursuits. They were huddled on the edge of the common, squatting against the wall of a cottage. A convenient open doorway was nearby. A bottle of wine was making the rounds, and several of the men puffed big curved pipes full of Black and pungent tobacco.
    Ki didn’t mean to stop in the shadows. He would have walked past the group and kept going if a familiar voice hadn’t caught his attention. It was Zascha, their unpleasant supper companion of a few hours before. Ki had no idea what he was saying, but the man’s tone was unmistakable. He was stomping up and down before his friends, flailing his arms about and spitting out his anger.
    He’s stirring them up about something, thought Ki, and doing a pretty fair job of it. As he watched, Zascha gestured toward the fields, then back to Gustolf’s cottage. Twice, Ki picked Jessie’s name out of the unfamiliar tongue. Each time Zascha mentioned her, his listeners muttered darkly to themselves, slammed their fists together, and gravely shook their heads.
    Ki walked quietly away, circled the cottages, and looked out into the night. Every town had at least one troublemaker, and the sour-faced Zascha clearly had the job sewn up in Gustolf’s village. Ki would have given much to know what the man was saying, but figured he had a fair idea already. The American girl was not to be trusted. She had come to lure the elder into her web, to fleece the village before they could sell their land and move on. And look what had happened—on the very night she and the Oriental had arrived. One of their own had been killed, and old Gustolf himself was doomed, bitten by the man-wolf. Did the